Nigel.
Try changing your regional settings to English (United States).
You will find that 2.5.2013 is still converted to 2/5/2013.
In the US, with a known date format of dd.mm.yyyy, 2.5.2013 should produce 5/2/2013.
The reason for this is that Access only sees 2.5.2013 and not the intended...